Mystic Rider (17 page)

“I will not be talked out of it,” Pauline insisted. “We will
go with you wherever you choose to go. Paris is no longer the home we once
knew.”

Chantal tapped her friend’s tones out on the piano keys and
knew she was speaking falsehoods. But what was Pauline hiding with her brave
words? Fear? That was very likely. But there was more than fear in her voice. What
had happened to the flitting butterfly of society that Pauline once was? She’d
had reason to change, Chantal supposed. With most of the French nobility, and
even the king’s brother, gone across the borders to the safety of the Hapsburg
courts, society was not what it had been. And Pauline was not cut out for
revolutionary thoughts.

Perhaps her friend would be happier with the exiled court. Chantal
wanted to weep at the thought of letting her and the children go, but she had
no right to prevent Pauline’s happiness to aid her own. She could only hope the
separation would be short.

“I have reason to believe the countryman I seek is traveling
north,” Ian said from across the room.

He’d physically removed himself from the family discussion
by setting up a chess game on the far side of the salon and playing against
himself, but he’d obviously been listening.

Chantal sat at the piano to avoid looking at him, but she
was intensely aware of his presence just the same. Even though he was quiet and
appeared scholarly, Ian was not the kind of man one could easily dismiss from
one’s mind. Sometimes, she thought she felt the vibration of his enormous energy
from across the room.

Her father had lent him one of his old frock coats. Perhaps
that was the difference tonight. In freshly starched lace, stockinet breeches,
and newly cleaned boots, his long dark queue spiraling down the royal blue of
his coat, Ian appeared the epitome of every gentleman she’d ever known. He sat
with one long muscled leg sprawled out to the side of the chess table, the
other boot tucked under his seat, as if he might leap from the chair at any
moment.

All heads turned at his comment.

Not looking up from the chessboard, he continued, “I think
it might ease all our minds if we traveled together.”

Despite his casualness, Chantal felt the force of his
determination. Odd, that she felt it without using the piano to test his tones.
She clenched her fingers into her palm so tightly that her nails bit through
skin. She didn’t even know where to begin protesting his mad suggestion.

“You
see
the
safety in that?” her father asked with a nonchalance to match Ian’s.

Again, Chantal sensed an undercurrent she couldn’t decipher,
as if there were more meanings to
see
than she understood.

Ian moved his queen into position and glanced up, directly
at her. His eyes glowed with an incandescence that held her captive and burned
through to the places that he’d touched the prior night, inside and out.

“I See the danger of remaining here,” he remarked, answering
her father with the same emphasis, but holding Chantal’s gaze as if he spoke
only to her. “There’s safety in numbers. The journey is not so long that you couldn’t
return later if you so desired.”

“Of course we so desire.” Chantal looked away first. Her
fingers unconsciously stroked the keys, trying to play what wasn’t being said.
Ian’s remarks were often cryptic, but her father’s participation unnerved her. “This
is our home. We cannot just up and leave it.”

“But you understand the sense in traveling with your friends
and the children until they have safely crossed into Austria?” Ian asked, not
raising his voice.

The Austrian Netherlands were the closest country to Paris,
a day’s ride away. Silence filled the room now that their thoughts had been
said aloud.

“He speaks truth,” her father finally admitted. “The roads
north are littered with checkpoints, and the soldiers are not always obedient
to their orders. Thieves are everywhere. Larger parties aren’t as easily
intimidated.”

Chantal stared at her father in surprise. His face seemed
more lined with worry than usual, and the strain of his tasks had aged him. He
rubbed his injured knee as he spoke, and her heart bled for him. He had lost as
much as she had these past years. She wasn’t certain he’d even looked at
another woman since her mother’s death last year. Her grief welled.

She usually played her piano or hummed to block out
unpleasantness, but with all eyes on her now, she had to face reality. “Liberty
and equality” had a different meaning to different people. Some thought it
meant they need abide by no law. Although she felt safe in her small world, in
reality, much of France bordered on anarchy.

She bowed her head in grief and acceptance. “I cannot bear
to think of you and the children leaving us,” she whispered, holding back a
sob. “You are all I have left of Jean. I would stay with you for as long as
possible.”

Pauline openly wept, wiping her tears with her lace
handkerchief. “Perhaps, by next year, we can gather in Le Havre and enjoy the
simple pleasures we knew as children. I want that for Anton and Marie.”

Ian turned back to his chessboard as if he’d lost interest
in the discussion now that he’d had his way. Chantal watched as he tilted his
queen to knock over the black king. White had won. Why did she think this had
some significance for him? She was surely losing her wits beneath the strain of
all these upheavals.

“I will begin making the arrangements,” her father said with
an unusual heaviness.

Chantal wanted to rush to him as he struggled to stand, but
she knew her offer of aid would be brushed aside. Her father did not require
her help, but the children would. And, perhaps, Pauline. More than anything
right now, she needed to be needed.

“I will help you, sir,” Pierre said with a sad solemnity
that indicated he’d accepted his banishment. “I sincerely regret the trouble I
am causing, but I think it is for the best that Pauline leave.” He stood and
followed his host from the room.

Chantal was torn when Pauline, too, rose to retire. She
wanted to hug her friend and go with her to admire the sleeping innocence of
her godchildren, knowing it might be the last time she saw them beneath her
roof. At the same time, she was aware of Ian crossing the room. She felt desire
for him coiling in her womb, causing her breasts to swell against the thin
muslin of her chemise so that the sash at her waist was suddenly too tight.

He ran his hand proprietarily over the nape of her neck, and
she was amazed that her hair didn’t curl from the electricity of his touch.

“I must go out this evening,” he said with regret. “I need
to make arrangements for the return of my chalice.”

Of course, it was about the chalice. Always the chalice. The
object was more important to him than she was. In this irrational world, that
almost made sense.

“I will go upstairs with Pauline and look after the
children, then,” she murmured, rising from the bench and meaning to walk away,
just to show she retained her independence.

She couldn’t do it. His hand drifted to her shoulder, and
she looked up to meet Ian’s dark eyes. The impact of what they had done
together last night hit her when he pressed her closer, and she gravitated into
his arms as if she belonged there. She circled his neck and stroked his nape.

“I know you have no reason to believe me,” he said gravely,
“but leaving Paris is for the best. You will understand someday.”

“Shredding my heart into little pieces is for the best?” she
asked, unable to keep the cry from her voice. “They are all I have left besides
my father. This house will echo empty when we return. I think losing them may
kill me.”

She refused to acknowledge the possibility that losing him
might be the worst of all.

She disentangled herself and hurried away before she could
melt into a puddle of tears beneath the concern and understanding in his eyes. He
didn’t even have the decency to appear cold and proud in the face of her grief
so that she could hate him.

* * *

Ian could feel his mate’s grief deep down inside him where
he couldn’t work it off with a few spins of his staff or a good long hike
through city streets.

He would have to offer her the opportunity to stay with her
family in whichever country they settled. That meant giving up all hope of
taking her home with him.

Providing he lived through his encounter with Murdoch, he
amended. Best to take one obstacle at a time. Rescue the royal family and the
chalice, pry Chantal and her father out of Paris before it exploded in rage,
find Murdoch, then pray Chantal would come home with him. The odds of any of
these happening were so close that even the stars could not predict the
outcome.

Ian walked the city streets to the Palais Royale without
encountering more than a rowdy band of revelers who demanded to see the
revolutionary cockade in his hat. Forewarned about this symbol, he removed his
borrowed chapeau from beneath his arm and waved it like a flag that allowed him
to sail freely past their narrow straits.

He met Count von Fersen at the Royale as agreed upon. Ian’s
ability to sense the emotions of Others verified Chantal’s judgment about the
handsome Swede’s integrity. The count was their best hope of rescuing the royal
family — and prying Aelynn’s chalice from the king’s possession.

The Palais Royale was another matter entirely. An arena
designed for amusement and built by the duc de Chartres, it mixed drunken
soldiers with lewd courtesans and men of political power in a crowd pulsating
with discontent and greed. With so many people crushed together in one place,
the cesspool of vile sins simmered and festered in the summer heat. It would be
best if the royals were far from here when they did.

He did not need the stars to tell him he was sitting on a
powder keg.

Joining the count at a café table where they could keep an
eye on the mob, Ian hoped his uncomfortable borrowed frock coat allowed him to
blend in without notice. He’d even donned a sword rather than carry his staff.

“My party will be ready to set out by tomorrow evening,” Ian
told the count. He nodded at the waiter to indicate he’d have a glass of wine,
and relaxed into a lounging position against the chair back as he saw others do
at nearby tables. “They will chatter of the gala wedding they’re attending. I
will be certain to mention that we hope the rest of our party is close behind
us.”

Von Fersen nodded his agreement. “The guards should
recognize my carriage and let us pass without difficulty. But our company’s
choice of the berlin for the journey is not the wisest and could cause you
problems,” he warned. “They insist on traveling together in comfort. You will
have to schedule many stops so you do not travel too far ahead of them.”

Ian had second thoughts about risking all for a royal couple
so removed from reality that they thought only of their creature comforts while
their country was perched on the brink of destruction, but he could see only
more bloodshed should he leave them here. “If you have the Russian passports,
there shouldn’t be any difficulty. They will smuggle out the chalice?”

“All is arranged, if you have the cash to exchange for it.
They need money more than silver and gems. I have already provided them with
attire suitable for a baroness and her servants and children. They have sent
wardrobes ahead, and the carriage is well supplied. It is only escaping the
palace guards…”

The count glanced around to make certain no one could
overhear. “They practiced tonight and failed. Tomorrow, they must try
separately, the children first. I cannot say how long that will take, but it
may be in the early hours of morning before we can depart.”

“The roads are well marked?” Ian asked in concern. He’d
learned that traveling at night was perilous in a country where the roads were
often no more than dirt paths.

“The baroness has just come from that direction. She says
they are safe and easily passable. The moon will be full, and we’ll carry
lanterns. If the weather holds, the journey should take no more than fifteen
hours to the first meeting place. I have notified all concerned of their
schedule so no one lingers too long and arouses suspicion.”

Ian knew that von Fersen referred to the hussars and royal
officers assigned to meet the carriage and escort it to the safety of the
border fortress. He preferred not to mention the real danger that awaited them
on the north road  — not suspicious villagers, but Murdoch. Very little escaped
Murdoch’s preternatural notice. He might currently be wearing the uniform of a
royal officer, but that did not mean his loyalty lay with the king. Ian knew of
a certainty that if Murdoch realized the Chalice of Plenty was within his
grasp, he would seek it out. If naught else, he could hold the sacred object
for ransom in exchange for concessions from Aelynn, forcing the Council to back
his ambitions with wealth or power.

“I will do what I can to divert any obstacles,” Ian agreed,
understanding that for the safety of the royal family it would be best if the
chalice went one way and they went another. “Beyond that, we can only hope for
good fortune.”

“After tomorrow, none of us will be able to return here safely,”
the count warned, rising to depart. “Is your party prepared for that?”

Ian could not lie. He merely shrugged and looked
unconcerned. “This is the best for all.” And that was the sincerest truth as he
knew it. Chantal and her father might despise him when all was said and done — although
he suspected Orateur already accepted the necessity.

“I will owe you a great favor when next we meet.” The count
bowed, and his tall, striking figure strode off  — a dashing, romantic hero who
would sacrifice all he owned to save his endangered lover.

Ian sipped his wine and pondered philosophical thoughts of
sacrifice and romance, but he did not feel particularly glorified about saving
lives by driving a wedge of deception between him and the one he wanted most.